Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

Niu rou mian, or beef noodle soup, is one of Taiwan’s signature dishes. Chuang Pao-hua, founder of the Chung-Hua Culinary Teaching Center, located in Taipei's Datong District, taught us how to make the hearty meal in a bowl the slow, labor-intensive traditional way. For our much-simplified and streamlined version, we use beef shanks, as the combination of bones and meat yield a richly flavored, full-bodied broth and tender, shreddable beef with a couple hours of simmering. Fragrant star anise and Sichuan peppercorns flavor the soup, along with toban djan, a spicy, fermented chili-bean paste. It's sold in most Asian markets, but if you can't find it, substitute with 2 tablespoons white miso mixed with 4 teaspoons Asian chili-garlic sauce and 2 teaspoons soy sauce The soup is lightly spicy; you can add more toban djan or some ground Sichuan pepper at the table for more heat. Chinese wheat noodles of any thickness worked well, as did Japanese udon and long, thin pastas such as spaghetti.